TODAY: Rutherford was outrighted to Triple-A after clearing DFA waivers, the Sox announced.
MARCH 29: The White Sox announced Tuesday that they’ve designated outfielder Blake Rutherford for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to fellow outfielder Adam Haseley, whose previously reported acquisition from the Phillies has now been formally announced.
In jettisoning Rutherford from the roster in exchange for Haseley, the Sox are swapping out one former first-round pick and top prospect for another. Rutherford, 24, was the 18th overall selection by the Yankees back in 2016. The Sox acquired him alongside Ian Clarkin and Tito Polo in the 2017 trade that sent David Robertson and Todd Frazier to the Yankees. Haseley was the eighth overall pick by the Phillies a year later in 2017.
Heading into the 2017 season, Baseball America ranked Rutherford as the No. 45 overall prospect in baseball, but he’s yet to deliver on the tools that made him a consensus first-rounder and a high-end prospect post-draft. The former prep standout turned in an impressive .293/.345/.436 batting line (120 wRC+) in a pitcher-friendly High-A setting back in 2018.
In two full seasons since that time, however, Rutherford has batted .265/.319/.365 in Double-A (98 wRC+) and .250/.286/.404 in Triple-A (80 wRC+). Along the way, he’s seen both his strikeout and walk rates trend in the wrong direction, ultimately drawing a free pass at just a 4.4% clip while fanning in 25% of his plate appearances in Triple-A Charlotte last year.
Rutherford has a minor league option remaining to Haseley’s two. He’s also yet to make his big league debut and has been used increasingly as a corner outfielder in recent years, while Haseley has had some big league success (2019) and is still viewed as a quality defensive option across all three outfield positions. The White Sox will have a week to trade Rutherford, place him on outright waivers or release him.
This guy had a can’t miss bat at draft. Baseball.
Yeah, that’s prospects.
I remember being pretty excited about Rutherford. I wonder if Cash is paying attention to this. Not all prospects work out, Brian. It is ok to dip into your stash of precious, precious MiLB players. Most won’t even play an inning in the Bigs.
I think that’s why Cash traded him genius. Scouts understand for most part which prospects are keepers and which are expendable that can turn into good players but still expendable. Not all prospects rated on mlb teams top prospects are rated the same by the organization. The Yanks could be very high on catcher Antonio Gomez and not so high on top ten Yankee prospect catcher Austin Wells but think Wells will eventually be the future at first base. We don’t know anything so why assume and just continue to cry to trade trade trade when your not in that room?
Uh. Ok, Bill.
Also: although I am semi-flattered that you think I am a genius, I am really just a regular kind of fella. With a good education. & a wide vocabulary. Aside from the fact that I am incredibly good looking, there probably isn’t a whole lot that separates us.
Cash has traded a good amount of prospects recently.
I think his Rizzo trade was really bad. Alcantara has all the tools to be a good one.
With IKF & Volpe coming in a few years—I would think that makes Peraza a likely trade candidate for a starter, though.
I understand the Cleavers are upset about this? How does Lumpy feel?
The Rizzo and Gallo trade weren’t bad. Cashman recognized the team’s weaknesses and addressed them as they were going for it. It’s easy to say in hindsight that both didn’t pan out as hoped.
As a fellow good-looking guy, welcome to the club Ducky.
If I remember correctly, his power was the question.
Joe, I think so. He was known for his line drives to such a degree that his teammates nicknamed him Barrel, as he consistently barreled the ball his first season. Then it all ended. Have to wonder if the talent people changed his swing to try and get more loft, and in the process ruined the one skill he had.
If some someone could figure out how to turn top prospects into guaranteed major leaguers, they’d be a very rich person.
See: Tampa Bay Rays or Los Angeles Dodgers
TBR is a great one but they’ve taken quite a few bites at the apple. Check out how many early picks they had the year Blake Snell was drafted. He was the only one of them that panned out.
That’s 10 1st round picks and 1 hit.
No perfect science.
Although Tampa does have good scouting, Otis patently incomparable to use teams that get perennial extra 1A & B draft picks to load up their systems to cite they’re that much better at drafting. They simply have much better access to much better talent more often.
Baseball reference has an interesting stat on it’s draft round pages. It shows you the number of players who played in the majors and what the average war is.
For Rutherford’s year it says “41 matching player(s). 28 played in the majors (68%). Total of 27.7 WAR, or 1.0 per major leaguer.”
Iirc he was older than most of his competition before the draft. Plus he was a known 1st round candidate for years so scouts have gotten multiple looks at him. There was a reason he fell down the draft board so far and a reason the Yankees moved on from him so quickly when their OF prospect pool was shallow. Cashman is a known prospect hugger yet he had no problem trading him so quickly. Usually he only trades high ceiling prospects after they get a couple of moderate to major injuries like Kaprielian.
WSox were mainly motivated to clear salary in that trade a few years ago with NYY, but Rutherford was being overhyped since a high draft pick out of HS.
@Ascension
Great point. All this turned out to be was a salary dump for the Sox. Obviously the Sox were looking for more than a salary dump with this deal, but as Mick Jagger sang, “You can’t always get what you want.”
So it’s salary dump, final answer.
Why didn’t you phrase your comment as an idiom? Your name gives you free reign to make up idioms, and you quote mick jagger?
Glass houses, sink ships
Your kidding me. NOT Blake Rutherford. That Blake Rutherford? The W Sox honchos we’re always trying to sell the fans on his potential. Bruce Levine spoke highly of him. How disappointed ChiSoxfan must be.
Yet another Yankee media hype machine turned a bad prospect into top 100 prospect. Never trade for NYY prospects.
You ever going to stop crying about the Yankees?
Of course, that ignores the very basic fact that the Yankees DO NOT RANK PROSPECTS. Outside sources do.
I love how you act like you’re any different from the Red Sox.
All I ever heard was Swihart this, Lars Andersen that.
If you’re going to pump and dump, you have to remember the dump part BEFORE the entire league figures out the guy isn’t that great.
Don’t forget about the Red Sox biggest blunder in Scott Cooper. Houston wanted Cooper in the Larry Anderson deal but Boston refused. Instead, they ‘settled’ on Jeff Bagwell…sigh. So even the hype machines get burned by player evaluations and rankings.
Yes but the Yankees play the hype game to try and prop up their guys in the national rankings (to make them more valuable, theoretically).
So…how exactly do they – ya know – “hype game” a prospect *before* they draft him? Quite the trick there, man.
Look. You don’t like the Yankees. We get it. But to imply that they are somehow manipulating prospect rankings is some straight tinfoil hat stuff. FYI.
@Everybody…enjoy his pain.
Add Garren Cecchini as a hyped Sox offensive prospect of last 20y who never did anything past AA, but other than those 3? Look hard to find more because Sox have done remarkable job of developing offensive talent to the MLB club and using others as trade pieces, who have also done well. It’s the pitching side they have mostly failed at, which up until 2017 was going after the “big body/4 pitch mix” useless types mostly.
Saw a chart somewhere not long ago that listed teams and how many they had developed over.. 15?20? yr period and Boston was close to the top, not bad for a team, which mostly hasn’t picked very high this century.
How about them Oakland AAA’s?
Hey, now.
Lotta great A’s fans on the board, Joe. In fact, @A’sfaninLondonUK is absolutely one of my favorite posters.
@A’sfaninUK is just simply a dick. Wouldn’t matter whom he rooted for. If he were a Yankee fan, we would all ignore him. Bet. I feel it is best to treat him as a special case. He is certainly not representative of A’s fans.
We are all much bigger & better men than he.
Yeah Ducky, my comment was specifically for him. Overall I have no problems with any fan base. And that includes the BoSox. But there are a few individual posters up here that are just plain dirt.
@Ducky- You got that right! How about Estevan Florial playing centerfield and leading off for us this year? No reason why he can’t be a 20/20 player for us blindfolded. I know you like him to. So Hicks, can be our 4th outfielder and play some defense for us in the later innings in center or left.
Fair enough & I get it, Joe.
He sucks. I spent a couple years in the Bay Area. Great fans. A’s & Raiders both. I just don’t want to be perceived as piling on or spiking the ball or whatever.
For most of those fellas this teardown has to absolutely suck. That was a good ballclub, man. Shame to see.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want our team to get in on some of that of course. But those guys went through enough this winter.
I have always loved those power/speed combo guys, @Judge99.
I don’t know if Florial has overcome his contact issues though. I think leadoff will – more than likely – be filled by DJ or maybe even Gleyber. But some speed up there would be nice for a change. (Which Gleyber has.)
Hicks thrived in that 4th outfielder role.
Pretty much how he earned his extension. I think that is the perfect spot for him. However: it appears that Cash doesn’t care much for my opinions.
Florial has already been sent to the minor league camp.
It’s going to be Incearte or more likely Locastro.
I anoint @Ducky, @Yankee Clipper or @Joe says… to become the New GM of the New York Yankees. Goodbye Ca$hman!!! Are one of you guys up for it?
I am actually worse than Cash*, serious.
This is a Hard Truth. But I have made peace with it. I would immediately gut our farm & run well over budget to begin with. Plus I get hung up on certain players.
Trust me, Judge. You guys would hate me in short order.
*This certainly does not mean Cash is irreplaceable.
Hicksy, Joe?
Sorry, I was referring to the last outfielder to make the roster, not necessarily the starter.
Well…placing Hicks on the IL – even just as an assumption – isn’t really something I’d argue about anyway. Sadly enough.
@Ducky- no you’re great, we’d never hate you. And anyone of you guys would be a major improvement over Ca$hman, who’s always incognito when it comes to making a move. I laugh at his comments “when it comes to making a big move, all I have to do is ask or tell Hal and it will get done” I guess it’s all just a lack of communication between him and Hal?
I am getting sick of Cash saying things like that.
@A’sfaninUK- I can see you’re still crying, about not getting Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez for Matt Olson. Lol
Yankee prospects are absolutely the most overrated in Major League Baseball.
@Very Barry- Nobody’s more overrated then you. Overhyped prospects usually land you a stud, everyone knows that. So what’s wrong with doing that? Other teams should learn how to overrate their prospects.
His white sox would have finished in 5th if they played in the East.
Our division boasted the AL’s only 100 win club, both Wild Cards, & 3 teams that finished with 90+ wins. Meanwhile in the “mighty central” besides the sox nobody even had a winning record. & all they could come up with was 93 wins lol.
So much for their big rebuild, uh?
Yeah Barry, makes sense. The Yankees should actually under-hype their prospects so nobody wants them.
So astute.
Funny how everyone’s team wants our overhyped prospects though, huh? They’re overhyped, until asking for one of their players, then their team’s GM thinks our prospects are hyped just right for them…. Ya know, like the porridge. And when they acquire them, like Roansey Contreras, all of a sudden, he’s an ace in the making, & Cashman’s been had, etc.
– Yeah, (yawn) Samuel wants his trolling back –
Anyway, Captain Judge, I would be worse than Ducky, here’s why: I think I would do better than Cashman, Ducky is smart enough to know we wouldn’t. I’d have Hal in so much debt he’d have to dine with…..the Dolans (gasp). That leaves JoeSays! I appreciate you though, man.
Anyway, yeah, can anyone tell me why we worked so hard to get Gleyber away from SS so he could fix his hitting & the Boone has been putting him back over there in ST? I thought Marwin played UTL, including SS, no?
Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps.Ask Frank Castanza!!
He’s not good at baseball
Wow I remember this guy was can’t miss
why didnt we just trade for him instead?
Opening the 40-man roster spot was probably a part of the motivation behind the Haseley trade — Stott will need to be selected before long — and Rutherford’s stock has tanked in recent years anyhow.
Rutherford is still quite young so I wouldn’t be surprised if a team like Cleveland or Pittsburgh puts in a claim for him. Perhaps another year of development is all he needs. 2021 wasn’t a complete disaster for him, so maybe he still has time to turn the corner.
Doubt Cleveland does. They already have a 40-man roster issue. I don’t think they’d shake things up just to add Rutherford.
@Dorothy, some team will give him a shot, especially if they believe they can identify where it all went wrong and they can correct it.
Another former future hall of famer.
Who’s to say the failure isn’t the White Sox doing a poor job of developing him?
There’s a lot that goes into a player realizing his potential.
#soxbrokebaberutherford
More like ‘Lumpy’ Rutherford.
Ward, Don’t be so hard on the beaver
June, I can’t help it when you talk dirty in jive.
That’s a very valid point. The White Sox historically haven’t been very great at developing position players. Sure, they’ve churned out some very good players here and there. But with that being said, who hasn’t. Only time will tell as far as Rutherford is concerned.
This is interesting. They could have cleared up a 40-man spot by placing Yermin on the 60-day IL instead of losing someone. Maybe another move is going to happen soon?
I agree. I was thinking that Micker will make the team because of Vaughn’s injury and expanded roster. So this addition is for the minors or another move.
Another overhyped NYY prospect who never was good, just the media literally creating a trade piece out of a mediocre talent. What a sham.
Rutherford was ranked the No. 9 prospect in the draft by Baseball America and No. 8 by MLB.com — both months before he was selected by the Yankees.
Don’t confuse him with facts Steve.
He was also, ironically, one of the players the Phillies considered taking #1 overall before they settled on Moniak.
google.com/amp/s/thatballsouttahere.com/2015/11/30…
“hype game”
Another dumb comment from a troll who never has anything insightful or valuable to offer. What a clown.
Like your comment was insightful. Man the bar has been lowered
@EverybodyHatesChris- Calling A’sfaninUk a troll is a compliment for him. Please stop! Lol!
@A’sfan – Teams can hype their prospects all they want but that doesn’t mean anything to the other 29 teams. Every team has their own scouting, data analysis and player evaluation teams so they don’t get caught up in how ‘valuable’ the Yankees or any other team rates their own prospects. Look no further than Andujar and Frazier. Yes the Yankees were very high on both of them but they could never unload either one because the other teams had a different (and apparently correct) valuation of both players. Big market teams get more media coverage so it’s not like the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox do anything different with their prospects than other teams do. They just get more media coverage about them.
It can also feel like the Yankees overvalue their prospects because their fans do. We all remember the ridiculous “Andujar and Frazier for (insert name of budding superstar with years of cheap control). Who says no?” proposals. All teams have their homer fans, but for a while it felt like most of the bad proposals were coming from Yankees fans.
I actually never saw a Yankee fan post a “Frazier & Andujar for Player X” trade proposal. Ever.
Not a single time. Rather, we get posters like…well, yourself who create them.
Something to think about.
Andjuar and Frazier both dealt with injuries. The former had shoulder surgery, the latter continuing concussion issues. The Yankees weren’t trying to trade them, although in retrospect they should have. If Frazier is past his concussion issues, he might have a very good year for the Cubs.
Weren’t the Pirates after Andujar for Cole?
Yes. & Cash didn’t make the trade. I am starting to sour on the Brian Cashman Experience.
While I believe the Astros unlocked Cole’s potential and the Yankees wouldn’t have (re: Rothschild), it makes one wonder what could have been.
Joe, yes. They also turned down Frazier for Stroman. They valued both, but injuries sidetracked. Still not too late for either, but Andujar likely needs to get away from the Yankees to get playing time. It’s really had to see if he can approach his rookie year unless he plays regularly, and I don’t see that happening with the Yankees.
I have been secretly/not so secretly hoping that Miggy can hit his way into that 26th man spot.
Rob, I was unaware of the Frazier for Stroman possibility. That one does suck. I was never really a Frazier fan as I guessed him and the NY media would never get along. Not saying I don’t like Frazier, I just didn’t see the fit.
Bout time Ducky.
Sure would like to see us figure out a way to work his bat into some games with regularity, @Dogbone. He definitely has a live bat.
Or: I guess we could just go ahead & trade him for Mike Trout. Either way.
@RobM- wow never knew that, I wouldn’t of made that trade Frazier for Stroman. I would of been too afraid of Clint becoming a star for the Jays. I wanted a Robbie Ray for Frazier trade three years ago, when Ray was pitching in Arizona. The problem was Arizona wanted 2 or 3 top prospects included with Frazier, that wasn’t going to happen, but I wonder what would of happened if it would of gone down, never thought Ray was going to become a stud.
The funniest thing to me—is that people believe that FO’s around the league would believe in “NYY prospect hype”
Good Lord. Do you really think other teams don’t have scouting & development departments? Or give 1 isht about who Jonathan Mayo ranks as a good prospect?
Lunacy.
@A’s fan. Of course the yankees and their media over hype their prospects. Its kinda the point isnt it? Prospects have an unknown value. Why not bring that value up with the hype? Maybe you should be a little more upset with your own team for not doing the same.
He was the next Mantle back in ‘17. Untouchable in any trade talks said the Yankee fan of the day.
@brucenewton- Nobody ever said Frazier was untouchable and nobody ever compared him to Mickey Mantle either. Arizona could of easily had him for Robby Ray a few years ago. Frazier can produce for the Cubs, if he can stay healthy. A big if. He has enough talent to be an All-Star.
Yeah, I’m certain even the crazy, extreme Yankee fan base sect didn’t hold that opinion. In fact, he was verbally berated because he allegedly asked for #7 while in the minors after he came over – he was widely disliked in personality, & never thought of as a top prospect by anyone. He did have potential because of his “legendary bat speed” (those were pundits’ words, not fans’).
High School outfielders carry such huge risk for completely busting, Just not a great idea to take them that high. Their whole value is hitting (there are some crazy good OF defenders in the world, but not many) and the hurdle to have major league value is high. Just not worth it unless the guy is an absolute hitting machine or a prime Kiermaier-level defender. Just being a great athlete whose power “might grow” isn’t good enough for an OF.
See KEN GRIFFEY JR or Riley Greene.
Thank you stymeedone.
May you cherry pick me some star relievers now so you can discuss how it’s a great idea to draft them?
Every case is different & some will bust. Wouldn’t get hung up on “don’t draft position X”
I remember being annoyed with the Yankees for trading Rutherford. He seemed like he had all the tools to succeed. That blow was softened a bit knowing that I could look forward to an outfield of Jude, Hicks, and Frazier plus another emerging OF prospect… Estevan Florial. Hear we are five years later and at least Judge is still a stud, let’s just hope he gets extended soon
Throw another former over hyped Yankees prospect in the trash bin
Probably a good thing they killed it on the trade then, huh?
Throw the entire A’s franchise in the trash bin
Padres should maybe roll the dice here, they need depth in the OF and even with the bad K and BB trends, Rutherford is probably a better depth/AAA option than guys like Trayce Thompson who we’ve already seen fail to produce at the MLB level.
Might as well give a former top prospect that’s still 24 a chance just in the hopes that he can still put something together.
Change of scenery will do him good, but won’t increase his dismal power numbers. He’s got 1 good tool…he bats LH.
Braves, go get him … minor leagues… asap
Was Blake Rutherford on the White Sox’s 40 man roster then released right after the Adam Haseley trade?
Yep
Well, this makes perfect sense with the White Sox releasing Rutherford to take him off the 40 man roster to make room for Haseley rather than sending him back down to AAA where the White Sox can eventually promote someone from AA to take his spot or have Cespedes in AA then to AAA.
I would take a flier on Blake. He’s only 24 after all
Yanks should take a flyer. Worked so far with Manny B.
Well, guess I’m not retiring on Rutherford’s baseball cards. Topps included this guy in EVERY dang product since he was a fetus.
If the Sox put him on outright waivers and he clears, can he then stay with the Sox in AAA?
Yeah. But I feel for these AAAA guys
Yes, he goes down to Charlotte. If he doesn’t get added back to the 40 man, he can declare free agency after the season since he has served six seasons.
Thanks!
Tito Polo! LOL!